Battling a Reservoir team missing four starters, the emotion of senior night and more, Marriotts Ridge overcame a sluggish night on the mat to pull out a 45-33 victory on Feb. 3.

“I hate wrestling on senior night,” Mustangs coach Jason Conley said plainly. “I don’t know how many times we’ve had letdowns on senior night, and we did tonight. We had a bunch of letdowns. ... It was just one of those, ‘thank god we got through it and thank god (Reservoir) wasn’t 100 percent,’ because now we have two more matches and if we win those we’re in the (1A/2A South) regional duals.”

It wasn’t just senior night. Conley, a teacher at Reservoir, was coaching against several of his own students, and junior Chris Spano earned his 100th career win with a pin in the opening bout.

Conley was happy to earn the win, but perhaps more importantly his team finally has all the other distractions behind them just in time for a monster dual against Centennial on Saturday. A win over the Eagles and Hammond will qualify the Mustangs for the regional duals for the first time since 2008 and only second time in program history.

“Flat out, we didn’t wrestle well. We looked flat,” Conley said. “We wrestled Liberty on Monday and wrestled pretty well. I didn’t think we would come out that flat against Reservoir, but we always come out flat on senior night.

“If we wrestle like we did tonight against Centennial, we’re in trouble. That’s the one I’ve been worried about for a while now. It’s the matchups, and can we avoid certain matchups.”

Against the Gators, though, Marriotts Ridge jumped out to an 18-0 lead after Spano’s pin and forfeits to senior Jacob Hejeebu (113 pounds) and Brett Gladstone (120). Reservoir bounced back quickly thanks to a hard-fought 8-4 decision for Connor Tayman (126) and a surprising quick fall for Hayoung Park (132) over Kyle Wiggins.

“Marriotts Ridge is a hell of a team. We were in an adverse situation from the start with four starters out, but I’m glad our guys didn’t let the team situation effect their individual matches because we’re getting down to the postseason where it’s all individuals,” said Reservoir coach Andy McIntyre. “I though we came out with a ton of intensity, and I thought we won the physical battle.”

Each Friday of every week, Howard County Times wrestling beat reporter Tim Schwartz will rank the Howard County teams based on their body of work this winter. You can tweet at him @TimSchwartz13 with comments or questions about the rankings. Last week's ranking is in [].

(Photos by the Baltimore Sun Media Group)

After senior Romtin Habibi, who earned his 100th career victory earlier this week, picked up a forfeit at 138 pounds, Reservoir’s Todd Del Tufo (145) looked his best all season, getting the pin after building a 14-1 lead.

Marriotts Ridge senior Thomas Olson halted any chance of the Gators making it tight by securing a fall at 152 pounds, and Austin Cestone (160) picked up a 12-9 decision before a forfeit to Michael Hurd (170) gave the Mustangs a 24 point lead.

Reservoir clinched falls from Tommy Tucker (182), Shawn Hamilton (220) and Tyler Ecker (285) in the final four bouts, while Stephen Alam (195) earned a pin for the Mustangs.

Spano, a junior who allowed his first offensive points all season when Reservoir’s Reese Kilcarr earned the first takedown of the match, said his 100th win is hopefully just the start of many more.

“It feels good. I’m ready to get some more,” he said. “The record at our school is 129, and I’m hoping to get above that. I’m aiming for 150. I just want to set my goals really high.”